What is the Bonding between Imran and Buzdar?
By Karamatullah K. Ghori
Toronto, Canada

When Imran Khan had appointed him to head the newly minted, PTI-led government of Punjab, last year in August, people had difficulty pin-pointing Usman Buzdar. Who’s Buzdar, where does he come from, was the question on most lips.
Now, 15 months later, that Usman Buzdar has become a huge embarrassment even to committed partisans and aficionados of PTI, the question again, on most lips, is why is Imran keeping him on as Punjab Chief Minister? What’s it that bonds IK to the pathetic failure that Buzdar has turned out to be at the head of Pakistan’s most populous and most important federating unit?
When IK had picked out a virtually unknown entity to step into the boots of outgoing and flamboyant Shahbaz Sharif, his logic of foisting Buzdar at the top of Punjab made sense. He wanted a clean break with the past—a past that habitually promoted the rich and the powerful at the cost of the common man. Showman Shahbaz was an epitome of the vested interest that had been ruling the roost not only in Punjab but all over the rest of the federation. He was personification of a status quo that pampered and promoted the privileged.
Imran, all through his relentless and painstaking campaign to earn the right to lead Pakistan, had fulminated against the hackneyed politics of privilege. His slogan was that he wanted to break the chokehold of self-styled patricians who had only fostered a Byzantine and cloistered culture of governance in Pakistan. Instead of them, he sought to groom the common man to wrest power from the privileged. His goal was empowerment of the plebeian, the common man.
Usman Buzdar ideally fitted into that paradigm of rule of the common man. He was neither privileged nor connected with the powerful. He was the man Imran was looking for to give a boost to the right of the common man to assert himself and claim his long-shunned place at the heart of governance. What better place to try this out in the largest province of Pakistan?
Eye-brows, aplenty, were raised at Imran’s atypical and astonishing choice.
However, even those with strong reservations on Buzdar’s elevation to a position of such critical importance kept their peace. What, many argued, if this unknown entity, with zero experience of holding such an important office, succeeded? Imran would be vindicated while they would be ridiculed and vilified if they made a show of their doubts on the validity of this strange-looking choice. So, tongues were checked and protest was, at best, in murmurs only.
But, more than a year-long protest of silence, is no longer silent or mute. Tongues that had kept themselves in check are now wagging unchecked and unbridled. Usman Buzdar’s dismal—pathetic, according to many—performance as Punjab’s CM has given plenty of grist to their mills to churn out their loud and vociferous complaints against IK’s unilateral choice.
What’s most disturbing—and should be more so for IK than anybody else—is that rumblings of discontent against Buzdar are loud and clear within PTI’s own ranks. Which, then, has played into the hands of IK’s detractors—of whom there’s a legion out there among those whose politics of privilege has been in IK’s gun-sights. They are now openly mouthing their ire at Imran’s poor sense of judgment and his alleged inability to tell chaff from the grain.
However, Imran has, thus far, been standing firmly by the side of his protégé, Buzdar. Which baffles his friends and admirers as much as it intrigues his enemies. What’s it that he values so much in Buzdar, and why is he not prepared to accept that he made a serious error of judgment when he picked up an unknown, untried and untested complete novice for the demanding job of Punjab’s CM?
In his hey-days at the head of Pakistan’s cricket team, Imran had the reputation of being his own man who brooked no interference in his command. By the same token, he wasn’t known for taking kindly to those who dared question his judgment. He was his own best judge and critic and sought no advice in his decision-making.
Well, that was cricket and what he has now on his hands is the political challenge of governing and leading a polity as complex and macabre as Pakistan.
So, by this token, what may have worked smoothly in cricket and earned him laurels has little or no relevance to the task of leading Pakistan and to deliver on all those tall—and still reverberating—claims of leading the nation to an El Dorado.
Some of Imran’s choices may have done wonders in cricket. One example of Inzmam ul Haq stands out in particular. But Buzdar, Imran’s gamble in politics, has turned out to be a lemon: a near-total failure, critics say.
Forget about Buzdar’s lack of charisma. Deng Xiaoping, the architect of modern and dynamic China, at under 5 ft. tall, was almost a midget. But what a titan, what a giant he proved himself in ferreting out China from the ashes of the Cultural Revolution—a Himalayan blunder of Mao Tsetung—and molding it into the dynamo of growth to the astonishment of the world.
Deng’s incredible success is an enduring legacy to the primacy of merit over charisma.
Apart from empowerment of the common man, Imran’s other motto at the threshold of power was that his rule will be underlined by promotion of merit. He intoned that he’d be personally monitoring the performance of his cabinet ministers and other appointees. Merit, he said, would be the touchstone of his governance and those of his colleagues in power who didn’t perform will be shown the door and booted out.
Well, where has that yard-stick of his disappeared in regard to Buzdar?
The man has failed, miserably, to deliver. His rule is in tatters but he seemingly still enjoys IK’s trust. Why?
There’s no logical explanation for Imran’s inertia, except that he’s living up to his old reputation of being an obstinate man who becomes irrational and unreasonable when challenged and told that he made a poor choice or took a bad decision.
Buzdar, on the basis of his poor performance should have been fired long time ago. But he’s still there, courtesy of his obdurate mentor’s inability to admit failure of choice on his part. Instead of firing Buzdar, IK is indulging into an exercise of futility by replacing the province’s IG and Chief Secretary. But these cosmetics are unlikely to work. Punjab, with its multiple challenges and complexities, needs leadership, firm and decisive. Buzdar doesn’t have the mettle to be that decisive and resolute leader.
The choice, in the end, is Imran’s. Is he still the paradigm of change? Or has he become a prisoner to the status quo that he was sworn to alter? He has to take a decision and his government’s future will be decided by the merit of his decision. Pundits are hard put to hazard a guess what side he will tilt. - K_K_ghori@hotmail.com
(The author is a former ambassador and career diplomat)